


Enthalpy

by skoosiepants



Series: Supersaturation [3]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-06
Updated: 2007-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-06 20:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skoosiepants/pseuds/skoosiepants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh, and," Other-Frank bobbed his head, "there's two of me now."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enthalpy

**Author's Note:**

> Brief aside from/companion to _Solvation_

Dimensions splintered out in countless permutations, Frank knew this. The butterfly effect, the ripples across time, turn left instead of right and suddenly you're an accountant at Binder and McLaughlin instead of an intrepid space explorer. The concept wasn't anything new. Spend enough time with Dr. Samantha Carter and you learned that any fucking thing was possible.

It was getting frustrating, though, especially when he spilled out of the quantum mirror into someone's musty old attic without the stupid fucking remote. He sneezed, got to his feet and looked around, searching for anything with dials, fuck, because it hadn't always looked exactly the same, not in every world.

He found boxes of Ancient tech, some lighting up weakly when he pawed through them - he didn't have a very strong expression of the gene, but mainly it looked like they were all out of juice, piled up there for safekeeping. He wondered who the hell's house it was that they'd have all these classified items packed away without even a fucking lock, Jesus.

And then there was a clatter of steps, sloppy footfalls, and the door burst open so fast Frank didn't even have any time to think of hiding - for whatever good it would do - and of course. Of course, he'd recognize that face anywhere, even in the dim gray afternoon light filtering through the dirty garret windows. Pete fucking Wentz was standing there, because who else would have a hodgepodge of broken alien technology ferreted away?

Pete reached out, flicked a switch, and Frank noticed he had a golf wedge clutched in his hands, half raised in the air.

"Holy shit," Pete said, arm falling. "Holy shit, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Hey, Pete, nice to see you, too," Frank said dryly.

"What? _What_?" Pete's eyes were huge. "What?"

Frank had a split-second to wonder if he was dead there or something, because Pete was looking a little white around the edges, but then Pete said, "Dude, dude, I haven't seen you since Rutgers," and it was half a relief and half a pain in the ass. Fucking entropic cascade failure.

"Yeah, about that"

"Seriously, what the fuck are you doing in my attic? I mean." He didn't seem pissed, just sort of manically intrigued, which wasn't so different from his own Pete's default setting. "I figured I'd see you at some point, given everything, but. No, really, what is this?"

Frank shook his head. "Please tell me we're in Colorado."

Pete frowned. "That's a really odd statement, dude, considering."

"Look, Pete, are you part of the fucking Stargate program or not?"

Pete went suspiciously blank-eyed, so Frank knew his, "I have no idea what you're taking about," was a complete lie.

"Right. Shit. What, are you" Frank laughed, even though it wasn't funny at all. "Do you have the remote for this thing?" he tried, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the mirror.

Pete carefully leaned the golf club up against the doorframe. "I think maybe we should get on the same page here."

Frank nodded. "Okay."

"Okay. Okay, so. Stargate?"

Frank took a wild leap and said, "You work under the mountain in a secret military base that explores alien planets by way of a giant ring called a Stargate; you've got dual PhDs in mechanical engineering and biochemistry; you can take a cell phone apart and turn it into a radio transmitter in less than thirty seconds." Frank took a deep breath, catching Pete's slightly skeptical eyes. "Oh, and you're kind of in love with Patrick Stump."

At that, Pete blinked. "Who?"

*

"You're wrong, you know," Pete said, fiddling with the coffee maker.

"Huh?" Pete made terrible coffee, Frank knew this from experience, but he needed the caffeine so badly he was willing to chew on the grounds.

"I don't work for those assholes anymore."

Frank pointed upward. "So you just helped yourself to some alien memorabilia?"

"Yeah, dude, yeah." Pete nodded, grinning. "And we're not in Colorado."

Shit. "We're not?"

"Nope. Jersey. The armpit of these here fine United States." Pete tucked his hands in his hoodie, leaned back against the counter as the coffee maker fired up, gurgling. He opened his mouth, then shut it again as the back door rattled, lips curling into another huge-ass grin.

"Hey, I smell coffee, I thought I told you" Patrick froze in the doorway, his gaze locked on Frank, and Frank flashed Pete an annoyed look, because seriously.

Pete jabbed a finger at him. "Oh, come on, that was classic quantum mirror shenanigans right there, okay? Your _face_, Iero. 'You're in love with Stump,'" he used some finger quotes, and Frank kind of wanted to snap them in half, "yeah, okay, you don't end with that kind of revelation if you don't want to be fucking punked, dude."

"You're hilarious, Wentz." And, hey, it wasn't like Frank was trapped in an alternate universe where it was scientifically impossible for him to exist in two places at the same time, so his body could, like, start killing itself at any fucking moment. Oh. Wait.

"What's going on?" Patrick asked. He dropped his messenger bag on a kitchen chair and stared at Frank. "Seriously, I. How did you get here before me, which, okayPete, did you food shop? Because the guys are all coming over for dinner in, like, two hours, so. Frank? Also, like." He flapped a hand. "Your hair."

"My hair," Frank echoed. Patrick looked sort of the same, except his hair was a little shorter, and he was rocking some killer sideburns.

"It's all. Short?"

Frank rubbed a palm over his shorn head. He'd taken an inexpert razor to it a week ago, after the Planet of the Alien Head Lice, and it was growing in a little choppy. "Yeah, well." He shrugged, left it up to Pete to explain. He was all tuckered out of answers.

"It's a long story, my little chickadee," Pete said, swinging an arm across Patrick's shoulders. "Or not long, just sort of unbelievable. He," Pete pointed at Frank, "is not our Frank Iero."

"He's not." Patrick had his face screwed up, eyes narrowed, and Frank could tell he totally didn't believe Pete at all. "Okay. That's nice."

"Isn't it?" Pete nodded. "And oh, hey, I'm finally going to meet your rock stars, huh? Awesome."

"Pete."

"Yes, Patrick?"

"Pete," Patrick's tone was long-suffering, "you've met Frank already."

"Well, yeah, but that was, like, twelve years ago." He looked at Frank. "I was your bio TA, dude. You were a little punk-ass dropout after, like, six months."

Frank scratched the back of his neck and sighed, because that was basically the same as his own dimension, except for the whole dropout thing. "I stuck with it," he said.

"Cool," Pete said, and Patrick pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I don't have time for this," Patrick said. "I deal with you _all day_, Frank. Can't I have a little quiet time to myself?"

"I'm not"

"Hey, hey." Pete jerked his head towards the hallway. "We'll just work on our thing, 'Trick. You can relax for a while and I'll explain everything later, okay?"

"Sure, Pete, sure. Whatever." Patrick rolled his eyes, grabbed a few cookies out of a jar. "I'm locking myself in the bedroom."

"You do that," Pete said soothingly as Patrick stalked out of the kitchen, and Frank had no idea what was going on in this world, but Pete was grinning like a loon when he stole into Patrick's bag and pulled out a glossy mag.

*

It wasnot as bizarre as it could have been. It made more sense than the accountant thing at least, since his grandfather had been a pretty hardcore musician. Maybe if Frank hadn't been fucking obsessed with the ocean from the tender age of five - another splinter, when that dead whale had washed up on the Jersey shore, and it'd been morbid and gross and endlessly fascinating for Frank - and maybe if Pete the TA hadn't been as supportive, as eager to push him, because god knew that had been a hard year for him, the freshman freak-out that either made or broke you.

Pete was weird in any dimension, but there were different shades of self-involvement that colored every single one of his actions. _His_ Pete never would have quit the SGC, not if staying meant helping to save the galaxy.

But that didn't actually matter. Neither did the fact that he was staring down at himself - at Gee and Ray and Bob and, Christ, _Mikey_, splayed like the rock stars they apparently were on the cover of _Kerrang! _ magazine.

"Patrick's producing your_their_ next album," Pete said proudly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"This is great, Pete, really, but can we return to the problem of getting me home?"

Pete looked disappointed that his little surprise hadn't shocked and stunned Frank, and he pouted and crossed his arms over his chest, curling into himself a little. Fucking Pete.

"Pete?"

"Yeah, yeah, I." He shook his head. "That mirror hasn't worked for years, man. I'm gonna have to tinker with it a little, okay?"

"Do you have the remote?" Frank asked.

"I have a remote," Pete hedged, and Frank asked, "That isn't for your TV?"

"Hey, I'm, like, fucking MacGyver, right? We don't _need_ a remote, I'll figure something out."

*

Pete ordered a pizza and disappeared into the attic and Frank collapsed onto the couch and just. Stared up at the ceiling for a while. It wasn't that he didn't trust Pete, but he didn't _know_ this Pete, and every instinct he had was telling him to try his fucking hardest to contact the SGC.

He sighed, rubbed at a headache brewing right between his eyes, and then reached for the phone on the table behind the couch.

Frank spent an hour being shuffled around the SGC, each moron insisting it was NORAD despite the secure line he'd dialed, no matter how many times Frank asked for General O'Neill or Harriman or Carter or Jackson or _Teal'c_, fuck, how stubborn were they gonna be with this?

When he ended up with some pissant Elliott who sounded like his voice hadn't even fucking broken yet, he snapped, "This is Dr. Frank A. Iero, IDC 5-7-C-1-0, and if you don't fucking get me through to fucking General Landry, I swear to Christ I'm taking the entire fucking Stargate program to the press, and believe me, I know enough about the 'gates and fucking lorentzian wormholes and quantum mechanics to make this shit sound fucking plausible," and hung up. Which was, you know, counter productive, considering. Fuck.

Burying his head in his hands, he curled his fingers into his scalp, nails biting. There was a loud crash upstairs, and Pete yelled, "Jesus Christ, _ow_," and Frank was ninety-five percent sure he was going to die there. Sure he would fade away like he never existed, and the thought of leaving Gerard like that, of just fucking _disappearing_, made his lungs burn, his chest tight.

He was tripping down that old familiar path towards an anxiety attack - he hadn't had one in years, not since he'd finished his doctorate - when the doorbell rang, and he welcomed the break in his thoughts, the sudden focus on something other than his completely fucked situation.

"Answer that, will you?" Pete shouted down the steps, but before Frank even made it into the hallway the front door swung open, a distinctively familiar voice lilting, "Paaaatrick. Patrick, Patrick, Patrick," and it was pretty much the last thing Frank wanted to deal with right then.

*

Other-Frank, the rock star Frank with his myriad tattoos - and Frank had _a lot_, but Other-Frank had just gone kind of crazy with the ink, seriously - was staring at him with intense fascination.

"I'd just like to say, I mean, wow," Other-Frank finally said, the first to break the creepy silence that'd haunted the room ever since the four of them - him and Gerard and Ray and Bob - spilled into Pete's house. "This is really fucking cool."

Frank would probably agree - did agree, on some level, underneath all the exhaustion, because _hell yeah_ \- except he'd already had his full of suspected-psycho accountant Frank and undead Frank and, god, _military_ Frank, and he kind of just wanted to be _home_. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You could be Frank's twin," Ray said, slumping down into an armchair, and thank you, Ray. Yes, he could.

"It's a little more complicated than that," Frank said, chewing on his lower lip.

Other-Frank's eyes widened. "Are you an alien? Fuck, that's. That's awesome, did they clone me?" he asked, and then Frank staggered backwards as Other-Frank took a flying leap at him, and Frank was so damn _tired_, seriously, so the biting was completely understandable.

"Back the fuck off," Frank growled, and Other-Frank gave him his fake-wounded look with twinkling, mischievous-as-fuck eyes and said, "You better not have rabies, you fucker."

Behind him, Bob rubbed a hand over his face, grimacing. "There's _two_ of them, shit."

"Hey, awesome, hi guys!" Pete said, bounding down the steps. He had some Band-Aids on the tips of his fingers, a black mark across his jaw and the ends of his hair were smoking, just a little bit. "I'm Pete. I'd shake your hands except I had a little accident with some electrical conduits, so. I see you've met Dr. Iero."

"Doctor?" Gerard asked, eyes huge.

There was a part of Frank that thought maybe downplaying some of the alien aspects of the entire situation would be good for everyone's sanity. "I study seals," he said. "Doctorate in marine biology."

"I think we got a defective Frank," Ray said.

"Your Frank's a genius in dumb clothing. I coulda been a contender." Other-Frank bounced on his heels. "Seals, eh?"

Frank nodded. "Leopard, mainly. And Weddell," he added, just as Other-Frank asked, "Weddell?" and they paused, grinned at each other.

"He's from another dimension," Pete volunteered, grinning. "Isn't that cool?"

"Wait," Gerard said, making these weird grabby hands in the air that kicked Frank's homesickness up another notch, because fucking Gee and his fucking weird hand gestures, _of course_ that was universal. "Wait, you're from another dimension?"

"It's all, like, alien tech"

"Ha! I was so right," Other-Frank cut in, and Frank palmed his forehead and groaned.

"Pete. Pete, please shut up now," Frank said. He added another pained, "Please," for good measure.

Pete pouted. "Oh, come on, it's kind of awesome, right? You're meeting your musician counterpart. You can, like, swap stories and shit, see who you both know—"

"Pete."

Frank briefly thought of the behavioral patterns of the lorhawks on PX4-322 - which from all tests were completely deaf and half-blind, yet performed extremely complicated flocking maneuvers - as they all swiveled their heads as one towards the stairs.

Patrick was staring at them, gaze flicking between Frank and Other-Frank. He had a white-knuckled grip on the banister.

"Pete," Patrick repeated in this deathly calm voice. "You better not set the attic on fire again."

*

The pizza came and Frank was halfway into his second slice when the doorbell rang _yet again_, and then Mikey Way slinked into the room and Frank's heart almost fucking stopped.

Frank had never actually met Mikey. Mikey had been long gone by the time Gerard had joined the SGC. He'd seen pictures - some old photos, but mainly just sketches, hundreds of them, done by Gerard - and he'd heard stories, the ones tinged with affection, heartache, guilt. Seeing Mikey standing there was like looking at a fucking ghost.

Gerard grabbed his arm. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Frank swallowed. "Yeah, just. Mikey."

Mikey blinked at him. "Okay."

"Oh, and," Other-Frank bobbed his head, "there's two of me now."

Mikey's second blink was sticky, like his lashes were tangled together. "That. Is not the strangest thing I've heard today," Mikey said, and Other-Frank leaned forward, elbows up on the coffee table.

He stage-whispered to Frank, "Mikey dresses his cat up like a rabbit."

Mikey slapped the back of his head. "Dude, shut up."

Frank stared, tried to memorize the soft upward tilt of his mouth, the skinny, sharp limbs that tucked in tight to his body as he sat down on the floor, because Gee would want to know. Frank wasn't sure he'd be able to _tell him_, tell him that there was something comfortable and awkward combined in every movement of Mikey's body, in every laugh he let slip, every snap he made at his friends, but he knew there was no doubt Gerard would want to _know_.

"All right," Pete said, clapping his hands together once and getting to his feet, his accompanying uneasy toothy grin revealing the action for the tension breaker it was. "I've got a quantum mirror to fix, so. I'm just gonna head back upstairs. Everything okay, 'Trick?"

Patrick was squeezed into the corner of the couch, an acoustic guitar on his lap and Ray hanging off of his shoulder. "Yeah, fine," Patrick said, and he studiously did not look at Frank at all. Or Other-Frank. Frank got the feeling he was trying to pretend the whole thing wasn't really happening.

"Hey."

Frank glanced up at Gerard. He had a sketchpad in his hands and a hopeful expression on his face. "Can I draw you?"

*

"I like your outfit," Gerard said, kind of dreamily. He rubbed a hand under his eye, almost poking himself with his charcoal pencil.

"Uniform," Frank corrected. He'd moved to the recliner Pete had been in earlier, pulling his legs up and crossing them, Indian style, leaning forward on his knees.

"Maybe. Maybe it needs some more epaulettes." Gerard bit his lip, cocked his head at his paper.

Frank stared down at his science BDUs. He didn't remember there being any epaulettes, honestly, but he'd been jumping dimensions for the better part of a week so, whatever.

Gerard hummed, sketched for a few minutes, then turned dark eyes on Frank again.

There were differences, minuscule differences, between his Gerard and this one. The shorter hair, the smudged makeup, the ratty clothes, the nicotine stains. It was all largely superficial, though. The look in his eyes, the slightly haunted glimpse of panic Frank got, well. He recognized that one. It was Gerard taking on too much - it was Gerard thinking about Mikey, about saving the galaxy, about saying goodbye to Frank before every off-world mission. So. Different circumstances, same Gerard. He wondered if Frank was in love with him in this world, too.

"What?" Frank asked, and Gerard just shook his head.

"Nothing, just. You're really identical."

Frank smiled. He couldn't help it. "Yeah, well. In any world, I'm still me."

*

Sleep came surprisingly fast that night. Or not so surprisingly, considering he hadn't really slept much at all the past couple days. Pete was still up clanking away in the attic, and he drifted off to curses and the occasional yelp and, once, Patrick shouting at Pete to shut the fuck up.

He slept _hard_, too, exhausted, and he woke up to Gee's face, so close he could only see his eyes, a dark hazel, and he grinned, slurred a lazy, "Mornin'," and had their mouths pressed together before he could register the shorter hair, the panicked expression, and _shit_. "Shit, sorry," Frank said, scrambling backwards. "I didn't"

"Do you?" Gerard had his fingers to his lips. "Do you do that?" he asked in a little-kid hush, eyes huge. "You and. Me?"

"Um. Yes? We're, you know." He didn't say _in love_, because that sounded retarded in his head, but it was pretty much the forever deal. "Are you?"

"Oh, no, no." Gerard shook his head, kept shaking it. "No, no, he's like, engaged. To a girl."

"Right." This Jamia chick - and he'd bet money the girl was Jamia, because Frank's found that it's either Jamia or Gerard or no one at all - must be pretty fucking awesome to trump Gee. "Sorry."

"I'm not, I mean. Frank, _my_ Frank is"

"Breathe, Gee. I meant sorry for the kiss," Frank said, and there was a whole wealth of heartache in Gerard's eyes. It sort of hurt to look at him.

"Oh, right. Okay," Gerard said.

"What are you still doing here?" Frank asked softly, and Gerard bit his lip, looked away.

Then he smiled, lopsided, and said, "Wanted to say goodbye."

*

"So there's definitely another me?" Gerard asked, hands cupped around his coffee mug.

"What?"

"Where you're from, there's a me?" He looked kind of wide-eyed, like he couldn't really believe there was another dimension that he'd survived in and if this Gerard's past was anything like _his_ Gerard's, well. Frank understood where he was coming from.

"There's a you." Frank nodded. He wanted to add something about Bob and Ray, but he didn't want to bring up Mikey, and that was something Gerard had probably already guessed, anyway. Gerard was pretty smart like that. "We're space explorers. It's not as cool as it sounds."

"Are you sure? 'Cause that sounds pretty cool."

Frank didn't feel like explaining it, explaining how it was terrible and fantastic and thrilling and easily the scariest thing he'd ever done in his life. He settled on, "There's no seals," and _there_. There was the biggest difference; the slightly bewildered gleam in Gerard's eyes, because, fuck, _Joe_ would've gotten that reference.

Frank sipped at his coffee, grimaced at its tepidness.

Gerard nodded towards the _Kerrang! _ still splayed on the tabletop. "Did you read that?"

"No," Frank said. He wasn't going to lie. Some part of him _wanted_ to read it, to fill up on all the little details of what could have been, but his life was out there in Pegasus, on the edge of nowhere, as part of an anonymous group of explorers helping to stave off the end of their corner of the world. He wouldn't trade his experiences for anything, no matter how harrowing they were, but if he looked, he wouldn't be able to un-know what he knew - he didn't want to risk getting inundated with wistful what-ifs. He grinned at Gerard, though, said, "You sing."

Gerard grinned back. "Do I"

Frank shook his head. "Engineer. With clever fingers."

"Huh." Gerard rubbed his bottom lip. "Okay."

Pete wandered into the kitchen, yawning, the thin skin under his eyes worn gray. He smiled, though, when he caught sight of Frank and Gerard at the table.

"Did you sleep?" Frank asked, and Pete said, "What is this sleep of which you speak?" then shook his head.

"Dude, seriously, I practically had to rebuild that thing from scratch, and when I figured out the power was tapped"

"Shit."

"No, no." Pete shook his head again. He took his mug from the day before out of the sink, rinsed it and poured himself a cup of coffee. "It's fine. I just rigged up a generator, no big."

Frank stared at him.

"What, what?" Pete asked, head cocked.

"You. You got it to work?" Frank asked, and it felt a little surreal. Pete was a genius and all, but the working conditions really hadn't been entirely ideal. "Really?"

"Yeah, man, we're all set."

*

The attic was a complete mess of wires and Ancient tech. Slight charring scored the wooden floor in places, the walls, and directly next to the mirror sat a tiny glowing generator. "Is that raw _naquadah_?" Frank asked, incredulous.

"I can't believe you doubted me, dude," Pete said, rocking back on his heels. He had a smug grin stretched across his face.

"How was I supposed to know you stole fucking naquadah, Pete, Christ, what if they find out about this?" He made a mental note to tell Pete about his phone call to the SGC before he left, because, holy shit, they were going to come down on Pete and come down on him hard. He had to hide all this shit somewhere safe.

Pete waved him off. "It's fine, don't worry, I've been out of the game for years, right? How're they going to even suspect me? So, yeah, I jury-rigged this," Pete rolled a little egg-like object around in his hand, "out of something that wasn't working." He shrugged. "It has buttons on it and it can talk to other Ancient tech, so I figure it's worth a try, right? We'll just surf around until we've got a likely world. No rush."

Frank arched an eyebrow. "Except for the part where my molecules start to disintegrate, yeah, sure."

"Hey, I can't fix _everything_," Pete said.

*

It was starting to blur together, the shifting channels, scenes, and his thumb was kind of cramping up. Pete had offered to work the remote for a while, but Frank had been reluctant, like he'd miss something vital, skip right past where he really needed to be.

Three hours in and Patrick set a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches down next to him on the attic floor. Frank flashed him a grateful smile, flexed his fingers.

Patrick shrugged. He still didn't seem thrilled with everything, but it was _Patrick_. He sort of got angry and then forgot about it.

"Wait," Pete said, grabbing his hand, and Frank looked up and saw. Gee. Asleep on the floor of a lab, arms crossed, half-slumped in a sprawl, one leg bent up. His brow was creased, corners of his mouth tugged down.

"Hey." Frank set the remote aside, reached out with tentative fingers, hope making him nauseous. "I think this is it." The lab looked like Atlantis, a cool blue and monochrome gray, but Gerard. Gerard had his long dark hair, slick and messy over his round face, that scar at the corner of his eye from where Pete had clocked him with a life signs detector a couple weeks ago, and he was _there_. He was waiting for Frank to come back.

"Jackpot," Pete crowed.

"God, yes," Frank said. He curled his hand into a fist, dropping his arm before he could touch the cool surface of the mirror.

"What are you waiting for? Go forth, be merry."

Frank shook his head, shackled Pete's wrist. "Listen, Pete, get rid of all this, okay?"

"Yeah, sure." Pete bobbed his head.

"No. No, I mean it, they'll find out, and if not them, then the NID. Just get it out of your house, seriously. You'll sleep better. _Patrick'll_ sleep better."

"I would dearly love it, Pete," Patrick said, arms crossed over his chest and hat tipped back, "if you'd find a new place to hide all of your alien crap."

Pete rolled his eyes. "Fine, okay."

"Promise?" Frank tightened his grip.

"_Yes_, mom, I promise." Pete scowled. "Don't I even get a thank you?"

Frank tugged Pete into a fierce hug, smiled against his cheek. "Thanks."

*

Stumbling into the dry recycled air of Atlantis was almost unreal. And the _relief_. The relief was nearly overwhelming; he could feel every muscle in his body relaxing, could feel something sharp prickling behind his eyes.

"Gee," he said, a hoarse croak.

Gerard shifted, the lines on his forehead smoothing out, and Frank dropped to his knees, crawled up next to him.

"Gee," he said again, louder. He touched Gerard's face, pressed his fingertips onto the crest of Gerard's cheek, tugged on a shank of hair falling over his eyes. "Wake the fuck up, Gerard."

He was grinning by the time Gerard fluttered his eyes open, stupid, giddy giggles slipping past his lips.

"Frank?" Gerard's eyes went big, round, disbelief flashing and then happiness warming them, crinkling the skin at the corners. He grabbed Frank's arms, pulled him onto his lap, wrapping his arms so tight around him Frank squeaked. "Frankie, hey."

"Hey," Frank said, voice muffled, face mashed up against Gerard's neck.

"Pete saved you a fruit cup," Gerard said.

Frank smiled. "Awesome."


End file.
